Trends: A Look At Facebook Profiles

A feed about blogging suggests analysing forums, Twitter, and social networks to find out what people are talking about, what interests them, what’s bugging them, and then look for ways to help. I’ve been trawling around Facebook, visiting friends’ pages, (it’s amazing the details I miss on the Facebook landing page) reading the chatter, all in a bid to redefine the direction for what’s next. Yes, there’re other ways of researching this. For instance, I joined a forum and posted a puerile poem on it. It is like a wilted weed in a summer’s meadow: Quite rubbish.

Going by Facebook, it’s a mixed bag of trends and concerns and reactions to events, issues, daily life. It’s so mixed that I’m still grappling with the range of topics and issues that preoccupy 15/266 Facebook friends. [I keep my circle small.]

Among these are:

1. Photographs–iPhones make it easy to upload pictures in realtime to Facebook, and no time is lost in sharing this on the network. We all like looking at food and food updates tends to generate a lot of comments. Holiday pictures, children and pets, and sometimes new purchases make frequent appearances too.

2. Daily life–Again, food and drink, the eating, the making of, are high in this category. Also strange encounters with animals, humanity, odd conversations overheard . . .

3. Links to music videos and strange videos: Chris Tomlin is a favourite in my set, and videos starring dancing animals, dancing toddlers, toddlers playing any stringed instrument….these are all in the Top Five.

4. Links to news: The New York Times is very popular, as is CNN. Also, smaller online media, which have intriguing headlines and blog posts.

5. Comments: For this one, I had to revisit friends’ pages so I’d see a trend. It is, as you’d have guessed, i) encouragements to go the distance when the person finds it hardgoing, ii) pats on the back when personal achievements are announced, iii) answers to tough questions, iv) discussions on diverse issues ranging from etymology to otolaryngology, from RPGs to G-market shopping.

Basically, these are issues I’ve yet to explore in detail and in helpful ways. I have been given an assignment by a brother I was chatting with the other evening online. He said to write about friends hooking you up with someone new. His question: How would you respond and why? An essay-like question deserves an essay, so that’s part of my homework. Read it here. Obviously, he’s been on the receiving end, and on my part, this is all hypothetical and pure conjecture on my part. I can imagine two scenarios: A friend wanting to hook me up with Andre (time travel poses no problem at all), and/or recalling the few instances when well-meaning friends have initiated the introduction. “The rest is up to you.” For this second scenario, my reaction was to scribble a poem for a literature forum about the dating scene from my halcyon days.